Suddenly the old woman in the hat caught sight of the crèche, and with the swift transition of the South, she stopped short in her chatter and clutched her companion's arm: "Ah!" she said, "_c'est le bon Jésus, qui donne courage!_" Every note of her harsh old voice thrilled Bernardy's nerves like a sudden clarion. It seemed to him the most luminous moment of his life. There are brief seconds when a rent in the outer film of this world comes against a rent in what we are pleased to call the "next," though it is really co-existent with our own. Then it is that we can catch a glimpse of something that is at another angle, a differently tilted spiritual plane, so to speak, from our own, and for which our minds would, ordinarily, need a different focus. The old woman had torn a peephole for Edmond--perhaps, for all he knew, in that moment of sympathetic concentration in the Square, their personalities had mingled, and so made him sensitive to the premonition that gripped him as she passed. He only knew that her phrase--and being a phrase-monger himself he had a passion for them--struck him as magnificent. He would have thought less of it had she said it of the Christ on the Cross, but she spoke of the Christ-Child. Or if she had spoken of peace, but her words were "qui donne courage." "_C'est le bon Jésus, qui donne courage!_" Bernardy stood quite still, wondering what her life had been that "courage" should be the word that instinctively sprang to her lips. The two women were still peering in at the crèche, but while White Cap was recognizing all her acquaintances, so to speak, and hailing them by name, the other old woman stared straight in front of her, repeating her phrase very fast, over and over again. Suddenly she turned, and coming down the church to where Bernardy stood, peered up into his face. For the last time she repeated it, but with a slight difference, her hand on his wrist: "Tu sais, mon brave," she said, "tu sais, c'est l'Enfant qui donne courage!"